Camas

Description:

Six-petaled blue-purple flower with yellow anthers; multiple flowers on a tall spike. Linear basal leaves. Onion-like bulb provided a staple food for native Americans along the Columbia River and western Rocky Mountains.

Habitat:

Blooms in moist meadows in spring, which dry out as summer progresses.

Notes:

Plant first described for science by Lewis and Clark. In June, 1806 Lewis wrote: "the quamash is now in blume and from the colour of its bloom and at a short distance it resembles lakes of fine clear water, so complete is this deseption that on first sight I could have swoarn it was water." In this photo, drifts of camas grow on grassy slopes above the Columbia River, in Catherine Creek Natural Area, Washington.